Philippines

Population Control

Popcom was the government agency with primary responsibility
for controlling population growth. In 1985 Popcom set a target
for reducing the growth rate to 1 percent by 2000. To reach that
goal in the 1990s, Popcom recommended that families have a
maximum of two children, that they space the birth of children at
three-year intervals, and that women delay marriage to age
twenty-three and men to age twenty-five.

During the Marcos regime (1965-86), there was a rather uneasy
accommodation between the Catholic hierarchy and the government
population control program. Bishops served on Popcom, and the
rhythm method was included by clinics as a birth-control method
about which they could give information. A few Catholic priests,
notably Frank Lynch, even called for energetic support of
population limitation.

The fall of Marcos coincided with a general rise of
skepticism about the relation between population growth and
economic development. It became common to state that
exploitation, rather than population pressure, was the cause of
poverty. The bishops withdrew from the Popcom board, opposed an
effort to reduce the number of children counted as dependents for
tax purposes, secured the removal of the population-planning
clause from the draft of the Constitution, and attempted to end
government population programs. Attacks on the government
population program were defeated, and efforts to popularize
family planning, along with the provision of contraceptive
materials, continued. In the early 1990s, however, the program
generally lacked the firm government support needed to make it
effective.